11 for ’11: Krishna Palem on computing

During the holiday season I’ve invited 11 of the greater Houston area’s top scientific minds to share a few words on something — a trend, a discovery or an insight — in their field that excites them as they look ahead to the next few years. A new entry in the 11 for ’11 series will be published each morning.

Today’s insight, the final in this series, comes from Krishna Palem, a computer scientist at Rice University.

But this ubiquity comes at a price. That’s because energy has a cost, and we expend energy each time we create, share, view, listen to or otherwise act upon information. The more information we consume, the more ubiquitous it becomes in our lives, the greater the cost.

If the IT industry is to keep growing, it must find ways to deliver more information with less energy. In recognition of this, “sustainable growth” will become the mantra that drives the information revolution in coming years.

Evan White/Chronicle

Fortunately, the very fact that information is increasingly in the domain of perception gives us massive opportunities for innovation. When information is processed and delivered to us through devices that communicate with our visual and auditory senses — like streaming video on smart phones or sounds from hearing aids — the computer system is no longer a stand-alone entity.

It becomes part of a pipeline that includes our neural pathways, and we can take advantage of the fact that our brains have evolved to compensate for less-than-perfect information.

As a result, our brains can off-load errors made by the smart phone, the computer or the hearing aid. In the coming decade, the IT industry will become very clever at turning these sorts of neural savings into real-world energy savings. This is one example of what I call infodynamics, which lies at the intersection of the biological, physical and information sciences.

By exploiting the synergies between these fields, the IT industry stands to garner significant efficiencies. Since our demand for information is seemingly insatiable, I anticipate that new infodynamic technologies will ensure the IT industry’s sustainability.

To see the rest of the 11 for ’11 essays, click here. Please also share your thoughts on what you thought about this series in the comments below.